


Homecoming

by tifarising



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Commission fic, F/M, Family, Gen, Original Character(s), someone else's original character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-07 13:29:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1900689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tifarising/pseuds/tifarising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keiran, a Tundra, visits his parents after a long time away. Things don't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for FR user [Nadjari](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&tab=userpage&id=43944), featuring her dragons. The plot was also her suggestion. All I own is the story itself! 
> 
> Here is some paraphrased background on the characters:  
> \- Keiran is a happy-go-lucky Tundra. Pictured [here](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=43944&tab=dragon&did=2955615).  
> \- Olexa is his mate, a stubborn, but fiercely protective, Mirror. Pictured [here](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=43944&tab=dragon&did=2955616).  
> \- Cleavra is Keiran's biological mother. She's a Tundra, and the best potions-maker of her clan, known for her swift fingers. Pictured [here](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=43944&tab=dragon&did=4100957).  
> \- Flint is Keiran's biological father. A Pearlcatcher who was originally the blacksmith in his first clan, he left to start his own clan and that's where he met Cleavra. He's friendly and jolly, always cracking jokes, but very serious about the protection of his clan. Pictured [here](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=43944&tab=dragon&did=4028530).
> 
> I also recommend reading the [encyclopedia entry on Tundras](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=wiki&article=18)! Not necessary to follow the story, and I didn't stick to the lore religiously (namely, I let Tundras have better memories than they're really supposed to), but it's just plain interesting stuff. ♥ Flight Rising lore.

Keiran snuffled happily, loving the feeling of the wind pushing through his thick, shaggy wings. He was off to visit his parents, Flint and Cleavra, for the first time since he'd left their clan. It had been so long he could hardly remember their faces, but their smell hovered on the edge of his senses like an ancient, unforgettable beacon, rich and wet and _home_.

His father, Keiran remembered, always smelled like the smithy, even long after he'd hung up his forger's tools to devote himself to their clan. A faint oily scent clung to him and called to mind the image of a young Flint hammering away at something with not a care in the world, despite Keiran having only ever known his father as their unflinchingly responsible - if irrepressibly mirthful - clan leader. Keiran didn't think he could put a name to Cleavra's scent, on the other hand; ever since he was a hatchling, she'd always just smelled so strongly of "mother".

Before Keiran left all those years ago, Cleavra had given him a long linen sash to match her own, adorned with bangles she’d added for each new season of his life. Her own sash, she told him, the one she wore from grazing season through mating season and back again, had been a farewell gift from her mother when Cleavra left their clan; now this was hers to him. He had not taken the sash off since. It smelled like many things, many memories and journeys it had traversed literally at his side, but beneath it all was his mother, the deepest memory of all, an aroma that never fully faded. His nostrils flared as he flew, hyper-sensitive to the smells of everything around him, vigilantly trying to catch a new trace of that familiar scent, ready to rush to the ground and into her furry arms the instant he possibly could.

Keiran’s parents had always doted on him, growing up, and he knew as soon as he arrived that there would be head-nuzzles and coat-cleanings and rolling, rollicking wrestle-hugs all over the forest floor. Even Flint would let his carefully groomed Pearlcatcher scales get messy for a tussle with his son. Keiran looked forward to all of it, but he was particularly excited to show them the dragon he’d become. His mate, Olexa, was following from the ground, stubbornly insisting on coming along in case he got into trouble (but privately, he suspected she just wanted to meet his parents. What could go wrong, after all?), and the two of them were planning to lay their first clutch, of hopefully many, as soon as they returned home. He couldn’t wait to see how his parents reacted to the prospect of new hatchlings in their bloodline, and he couldn’t wait to introduce them to Olexa, whose smiles were as hard to come by as sunlight in the Shrieking Wilds, and every bit as precious. If anyone could coax a laugh out of his beloved Mirror, he knew it would be his father. He let out a little huff of anticipation, thinking of them all smiling and joking together.

Keiran hardly noticed the scenery flashing by around him; the steam-powered wings he wore on top of his own helped push him through the air at twice his usual speed, and his excitement drove him even farther, even faster. He’d unknowingly left Olexa behind, quite a distance back, but she had a keen sense of direction and would find her way without him - indeed, she might even find a shorter path than the meandering route Keiran was taking from Everbloom to his parents’ home in Wispwillow Grove. It was when the dark mists of the Tangled Wood started swirling around him that he noticed a stark new scent in the air. It was not the smell of the changing atmosphere, of the mists or the mushrooms or the murky black undergrowth, nor was it the smell of dragons that were strangers to him, which typically filtered past his senses like white noise. No, this was a sharp scent, a scent of danger, of _wrong_ , and as it became stronger Keiran realized: this was the scent of “Enemy”.

His instincts weren’t alerting him to a new threat; rather, his sense memory was groaning awake in response to one long forgotten. These enemies did not smell new, they smelled unsettlingly familiar. It was just as Keiran placed them as the rival clan that had been staging raids against his birth clan since he was a hatchling - something about wanting control over Wispwood’s best scavenging grounds - when he caught a whiff of two scents in their midst that were most unsettling of all...

“Mother” and “Father”.

Swerving towards the heart of the Wood as fast as his enhanced wings would take him, Keiran tracked those precious scents like a Scaleback on the heels of its prey. The air grew thick with Breath and the sounds of fighting as he rushed ever closer, and so too grew his worry.

Finally the sight of dragons fighting came into view. Claws slashing through fur and scales, teeth ripping into flesh, bolts of elemental energy flying through the air like a terrible rainbow; it was an all-out melee. His parents’ scents were stronger than ever here, though, so without a second thought Keiran pushed himself down into the heart of the battle, hoping to find them as soon as he could.

Sure enough, there in the thick of it all were Flint and Cleavra, barely holding off a party of six dragons Keiran recognized distantly by their enemy smell. Six dragons who were circling (and clawing, and gnashing) ever closer. Six on two, and as Keiran watched, a nasty looking Snapper slashed deep into Flint’s side, and Cleavra nosed into her potions sack only to come up empty. For Cleavra, the master potions-maker herself, to have run out of potions in battle… this was worse than Keiran could have imagined.

And so, though he had brought neither battle stones nor armor nor potions of his own, Keiran knew what he had to do. He dove horns-first into the fray, only one thought in his head:

_Olexa is going to kill me._

*

“I am going to kill you. Though I suppose you’re doing a pretty good job accomplishing that yourself!”

Blearily, Keiran opened his eyes. Craning down over him was Olexa, wearing a harsh-looking frown. Behind her were two faces he thought looked familiar - _Mother? Father? When did they move out to the Gardens?_ \- and he tried to to pull himself up to greet them, only to be knocked back down by a staggering wave of pain.

“Ow,” he said. Olexa frowned even harder. Were those tears glittering in the corner of her eyes? No, couldn’t be. Olexa never cried. “Umm… what happened?”

“Don’t move,” she snapped, instead of answering his question. She glanced at his shoulder and upper side, which come to think of it were hurting especially staggeringly, and then looked away again sharply. “You brave, big-hearted _fool._ ”

“You almost died, honey,” a warm new voice cut in. Cleavra. “That’s what happened.” She rummaged around somewhere behind him, and then pushed three of her famous potions his way. “Drink these.”

He tried to reach up to take them from her, and she just shook her head. “No, dear. Listen to your mate. Flint, support Keiran’s head, will you? Olexa and I will help him get these down.”

And so with the combined efforts of his parents and mate, Keiran swallowed down three health potions in a row, feeling the healing magic begin to work its way through his system. As it did, he started to notice that he wasn’t, in fact, in Everbloom Gardens - Everbloom didn’t have any fungi _that_ fluorescent! - and slowly, his memories of where he was and how he got there started to come back to him.

“Father!” Keiran cried out suddenly, remembering something particularly upsetting. “I saw you get Shredded! Are you bleeding? Mother, are you helping him?”

Flint chuckled, shaking his head. “So like our boy, to worry about this old dragon’s health when he’s the one lying there half dead.” He came a little closer, nosing down into the scruff between Keiran’s ears to press a tender, uncharacteristic kiss. “No, son. I’m fine. Thanks to your brave efforts and your mother’s fast potion-replenishing skills, I’ve hardly a scratch left on me. You, on the other hand…”

“You took the bulk of the hits at the end of the battle. Scared Beatros’ clan off good with the way you leapt into things like that, made them think we had more reinforcements coming, but they made sure to leave you with some awful parting shots before fleeing.”

“If you’d just waited for me - “ Olexa started, then shook her head. “No, if it was my parents I’d probably do the same.” She sighed. “You’ll have scars on that shoulder for the rest of your life, but otherwise, your mother says - thank Gladekeeper - you’ll live.”

Keiran swallowed, taking it all in. He was sad to have caused everyone such worry, but he was deeply relieved his parents both seemed to be just fine. If he had the chance, he knew he’d do it all again. Still, though, he had to admit...

“This isn’t quite the homecoming I imagined!”

Flint laughed, Olexa glared fondly, and Cleavra smiled, shaking her head, and Keiran knew: however he got there, it was worth it to be here now, with the three dragons he loved most.


End file.
